In a recent blog post that I wrote right before the Agile 2012 conference in Dallas, I expressed my hope that the conference sessions would be full of specifics, not generalities. No, thank you, I don't need another presentation explaining what test-driven development is. I'd like to hear someone talk about how they did test-driven development in a large project, or how they made it a standard practice across projects, or whether anyone has had success with it when working with outsourcing partners.

The presentations at this year's conference were a mixed bag, consisting of the following:

Very high-level discussions, often from consultants, about Agile and Lean concepts. These presentations consisted of a lot of name dropping ("Mumblemumble Daniel Pink mumblemumble Geoffrey Moore mumblemumble Taiichi Ohno") and colorful polygons ("You want to be in the two-by-two Grid Of Delight, not the Overlapping Ovals Of Doom"). Unfortunately, the keynote bore a bit too much resemblance to this category.

Emphatic statements of Agile precepts. Sometimes, the arguments were convincing, such as a good workshop-ish session I attended on Agile planning. Others were less persuasive, such as the contention that Scrum should be the governing methodology in every project. (That's exactly the sort of over-the-top pronouncement that gave birth to the phrase "Agile zealot.")

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A common question we analysts hear from our clients is, "How do we scale our Agile efforts?" Now, let's be clear: the question is not how to get Agile to work in a large project. Sure, there are challenges in making Agile work within big teams, but there's a much bigger concern. Organizations invest in Agile, or allow Agile experiments to blossom, and then try to capture the Agile magic in a bottle and mass produce it across the organization.

That's an entirely different challenge, with ambitions and uncertainties that are both Texas-sized. (I'm in Dallas, so I'll use Texas metaphors. So shoot me. Wait, no, I take that back.) The uncertainties have many faces, including (but in no way limited to) issues like:

How many projects or products should employ an Agile approach?

Can we expect our outsourcing partners to use Agile as widely as we do?

Do we need a common tools strategy to support Agile?

How much diversity of Agile approaches within teams is a good thing, and how much is counter-productive?

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We've seen a number of misconceptions about Agile come and go. For example, the urban myth that Agile is all about velocity gets far less circulation. More people have seen Agile in practice, witnessing first hand the other potential benefits (more chances for mid-course corrections, greater predictability of outcomes, better business/IT alignment, etc.) than just writing code faster. More people are starting projects with these potential benefits in mind, so Agile has clearly moved past the perception that it was some perverse cult of speed. Speed has no intrinsic business value, aside from keeping a twitchy software developer who has consumed way too much Mountain Dew from chewing his own foot off in frustration about delays and obstacles.

Agile Gets To Specifics Quickly
Business value is the goal for Agile transformation; benefits like quality, predictability, and business/IT alignment are either measures of that value or steps needed to achieve that value. Both topics require a lot of clarity or specificity. Otherwise, Agile can look a lot like a road trip gone horribly wrong: we're not sure where we're going, how close we are, or whether we're going the right way at all.

Agile succeeded brilliantly because it started with some very specific practices and values. Don't end a sprint without working code. Keep your backlog prioritized. Build the expectation of new or changing requirements into planning. Don't build your plans on information you don't have. That's a lot more-specific guidance than something like"Achieve this maturity level and you'll be fine" or "Follow this KPI to the ends of the earth."